Wednesday, March 23, 2011

I love, love, loved knitting this pattern. The hat turned out fun & versatile & I learnt a ton of new knitting techniques thanks to the beautifully written pattern with links to youtube video help. Thanks Tori!

I spun the yarn out of Arctic Winds for the main body and this roving for the trim.
The yarn was only slightly off in the gauge (18st & 24rows = 4”), so I had to work out the math on an excel sheet.
The mother of pearl buttons are from twpmango on Etsy.

I'll definitely be making this hat again. Possibly in more saturated colors.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Check out the beautiful & detailed doll set photo that artist Patricia of Papillon Bleu (love the name!) sent to me.
It took me a while to see but the much of the furnishing & carpet are my fabric scraps. Adorable :)Check her out on Etsy.

I recently blended some dark brown wool with a taupe angora rabbit fur I had stashed away for a long time in my parent's place in India.A little background - I was in India for work recently & while I was gently rubbing the angora in a cloth bag to de-hair it, a friend who had come by offered to help. I took up his offer immediately with a 'do like I did', thinking of all the useful things I could do with the extra time (check email, call the plumber). I came back out after 15 minutes to the horrific sight & sound of the bag being beaten against a wall. "It de-hairs a lot faster this way", he said. "Very good", I said, my mouth already dry & my palms sweaty, "you must have done a great job".

Needless to say, all the angora was now a stubborn clump. Very soft (because it had been de-haired right & proper), but a felted clump. I wanted to slay the dude who'd 'helped' me but I weakly made him some tea instead.

I spent the next two days ripping that clump apart & blending it with the brown wool & then spun it up in a tweedy, nubby yarn of about 3.2oz in heavy fingering/dk weight.

A few weeks ago, I came upon this lovely pattern on ravelry by Laura for a triangular shawl & thought it would work well. Mine is more of a kerchief scarf. So, I knit it up and here are the pictures!

The yarn isn’t as thick as what the pattern called for, so I used a 7mm needle. The scarf turned out slimmer & less bulky than what the original seems to be but it fits well & I love it. I used buttons on this one for the custom fit but might make another without buttons.If you’re using a thinner yarn, like I did, I recommend adding 2 more stitches to the CO & incorporating them in the cable. So it would be C10B and C10F and P14 instead of the usual. Also, doing a sl 1 (purl-wise) instead of knit-wise, creates a nice, neat edge but takes longer overall (from all the YO you have to do.